The situation of political prisoners in Turkish jails is dramatic. Many of them come out of prison either dead or on the verge of death. In fact, even after serving their sentence they are often not released because, according to the authorities, they “lack remorse”.

In addition, the Forensic Medicine Institute declares prisoners who are no longer able to care for themselves fit to remain in prison, thereby condemning them to a slow death in custody.

People's Party for Equality and Democracy (DEM) MP, lawyer Newroz Uysal Aslan, spoke about her party's fight for prisoners to ANF. “We are trying to raise our voice against what is happening in prisons to make it audible and at the same time to develop a battle line,” she said.

The MP underlined that it is completely arbitrary what is considered a crime according to the penal code and what is not. The length of detention is just as arbitrary. Given the situation of the prisoners, the MP said that “prison itself is not a place where politics is determined. However, we can note that the attitude of the prisoners, their forms of resistance to the circumstances in which they find themselves and their attitude towards them, at the same time creates a new politics.”

Uysal said: “Just as the arrest and detention of thousands of people and [the government] threat to society through the judiciary are in themselves an expression of a war to break the social will, so are the practices following incarceration. What happens in prisons amount to, in the legal sense, repression, mistreatment and torture. Politically speaking, it aims to break those people whose will they could not break outside. It is also a message to the people outside who are committed to the prisoners' struggle. The state has a very targeted policy about who gets what message. Anyone who fights is confronted with a state policy of death and killing.”

Uysal underlined that the sentences imposed on political prisoners are very high and the prison conditions are brutal. She continued: “Above all, the lack of access to medical care for ill prisoners is a violation of the right to life. The lack of access to health care is the result of a policy of death and killing. We as politicians from the DEM party, are trying to give voice [to those in prison] and develop a battle line against this policy. Which is why we will continue to fight for the release of ill prisoners.”